"Processes of Recovery"

Automatic Canteen Co. of America distributes candy, nuts and gum through vending machines which its 1,000 employes must call canteens because their president, Nathaniel Leverone, secretary of Chicago's Crime Commission, thinks vending machine sounds too much like slot machine. Of the 200,000 canteens in 44 States, about 98% are in factories. During the nine years his company has been going, President Leverone has noticed that canteen sales accurately reflect factory employment. Last fall, when the automobile plants began shutting down, canteen sales in Detroit fell from top of the list to the bottom. Once President Leverone telephoned an officer in a large Chicago electrical supply house, startled him by remarking: "I see you laid off about 5,000 men last week." The news had been kept from newspapers, but not from the canteens.

Intrigued by his barometric sales figures, Nathaniel Leverone took a suggestion from Treasurer Frank Anderson, decided to make a How's Business survey. He set his minions to interviewing officers of 1,500 leading U.S. plants, by last week their questionnaires had been filled-out by some 700. They showed: 1) inventories were subnormal in 64% of plants in the North Atlantic States, 65% in the Southern Atlantic States, 79% in the Middle West, 83% on the Pacific Coast; 2) wages were standing still; 3) business generally was down 30% from August 1937 but up 10% to 25% since June 1938; 4) employment increased from June to August in about twice as many places as it decreased; 5) 94% expected a gain in business activity, but there was little enthusiasm. Sample industrial comments: Steel: "Quite sure it will pick up soon." Machinery: "Optimistic, but permanency questionable." Zippers: "Expect business to be good for a year or so until the Government has spent all the money."

Similarly cautious optimism was the most that other indicators offered last week. The war scare depressed stock prices but not severely, and volume of selling was light. Demand deposits in Federal Reserve Member banks were near the peak set at the end of 1936 but the turnover (ratio of checks drawn to deposits) was at low ebb, 11% under the norm for 1935~37. Power output rose to a new 1938 high, General Motors recalled 24,000 men to its Flint plants, and department-store sales all over the nation were off only 3% from the same week a year ago as compared to 14% fortnight ago. Summarizing such statistics in his weekly press conference, Secretary of Commerce Roper, more sanguine than most industrialists, concluded that they marked a steady continuance of the "processes of recovery."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.